short story: THE LITTLE BOY WHO WANTED TO BE KING

As if two jobs and as much photography as I can possibly squeeze in wasn't enough, I thoroughly enjoy writing short stories. Creative writing. Though my style may not be to the liking of some people, as it's blunt and often from the dark side of humanity. But I don't write for other people. I write for my own pleasure and to maintain good mental health. Here is a sample for you.

This story is based on real life experiences at a local employer.

Once upon a time, in a far away country called Iseebee, there was a little boy who wanted to be King. His desire to become King, was burning with such fire and passion, that it consumed the very essence of him and controlled his every move and everything he said or did.

It eventually got the point where he actually started to believe, that he in fact was the King of Iseebee. Even if he had never been crowned, there was no doubt in his mind that he was in fact the ruler, and so he started believing that he could run the country by decree. It was all a little bit like the old fairy tale of “The Emperors’ new clothes”: There was nothing there, but everything was there, in his own eyes.

The little boy who wanted to be King, started believing that he had his own army of soldiers who would move according to his every demand, fight because he told them to fight and only fight forward. Never back. The little boy who wanted to be King, quite fancied the Olympic motto of “Higher, faster, longer” and decided to implement this motto when commanding who he saw as his own, personal foot soldiers.

There was a small but not insignificant problem, though. The little boy who wanted to be King, didn’t have very good command over the language spoken in Iseebee, and this was very frustrating to him. You see, in Iseebee they spoke English and more often than not, people seemed to not really understand what he was saying. He would stumble over the words. Replace words with other words that didn’t make any sense and then just make up the rest . But the little boy who wanted to be King, like any real King would be, was convinced, of course, that this, the reason the people often didn’t understand him, was solely because his believed foot soldiers were not all that smart. Truly, if you are King, everybody will understand your every word, your every command, and whole-heartedly agree with you. Such was his conviction that he actually believed that.

The little boy who wanted to be King, had never gotten an education that would help him run a country like Iseebee. In fact, he didn’t have much experience at all, as he had never run any country before. This, however, didn’t seem to strike him as odd or‘required’ and he refused to believe that it was even an issue, at all.

Eventually, the population of Iseebee started grumbling about the little boy who wanted to be King, and they started talking amongst themselves. They started talking to each other, about how completely out of touch with reality the little boy was. Some even called the little boy delusional.

The little boys’ desire to be King, though, was burning so fiercely, so passionately, that nothing else mattered and so he kept plowing on, even after consulting with the government of Iseebee. The government told the little boy: “Look, you are a good little boy…but you are not the King. Now, go play with the other boys and leave us alone. We’re busy and have other things to do, here”. Disillusioned and disappointed the little boy was sent away, but he vowed never to give up on his pursuit. It was in his blood. In his DNA and because of his state of mind, he wasn’t able to change that.

The little would get very, very upset when his foot soldiers didn’t do what he expected them to do, didn’t do it the way he wanted them to do it or didn’t do it fast enough to please him. He would, in fact, completely lose his temper and start throwing things around, yell and scream at them and the very most ugly side of his personality would take over and his attitude exposed in the blaze of the stage lights.

Amongst his believed foot soldiers was one particular solder who, contrary to the little boy who wanted to be King, had a solid education in the field and had been through many wars and battles that had left him with plenty of experience to benefit him in every stage the battle of daily life in Iseebee.

This soldier, other than being a well rounded and balanced individual, was forged from a completely different kind of steel than the little boy. He was the kind of soldier who was well liked because he had a sense of humor and approached other people in an appropriate manner. He was the kind of soldier who would actually pause for a moment to actually think before he acted and plan ahead in order to not get into trouble.

As seen many times before in history, educated people who actually think about the best approach is often seen as a threat to those who seek power, and it was no different to the little boy who wanted to be king.

The soldier who would actually think, had no desire to attain any kind of power. He’d had plenty of power before and now he was old and wise enough that he just wanted peace and quiet. But he had his limits and when the little boy who wanted to be king blew his lid and lost his temper, the soldier would show his metal and just remove himself from the verbal abuse from the little boy who wanted to be King. He would simply walk out. This only infuriated the little boy even more and the little boy would go straight to the government and present the case as seen from only his own side.

Now, the government, for all its short-comings, was neither naïve nor dumb. They had been through this scenario before. This was, they knew, just another carbon copy of previous instances involving the little boy who wanted to be King and, in this case, the foot soldier who was forged from a different kind of metal.

And so the government would send in a mediator. Not always a mediator with knowledge of the history, the background and the experience, but a mediator nevertheless. The mediator would do their best and their best would usually be just about good enough to cool an over-heated engine and calm things just enough that it was, if you showed enough good-will, tolerable for the next little while. But right under the surface, you could still feel the tension, because the little boy who wanted to be King…still wanted to be King. And so the saga continues.

 

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